Icarus
by Suk-fong
Summary: Fly so close to the sun, and I won't save you as you fall.


Alchemy. Equivalent exchange, transmuting something into something else. It's a give and take, nothing is without its price. Somewhere along the lines it became genetic; people who have an alchemist in their family are more likely to have children able to perform alchemy, no one has every properly figured out why.

Which is why Toushirou Hitsugaya was such a surprise; he has no notable family, nor anyone who took the time to teach him alchemy so no one quite knows how he started. But he caught the attention of Sargent Matsumoto who pushed her superiors to let him take the state alchemy test, and at twelve Toushirou Hitsugaya became The Ice Alchemist.

He was the first one to bear that title, officially; but the first Ice Alchemist was still living, refusing to follow the laws of the Shinigami, or the State Officials. At fourteen, Hitsugaya decided it was time to learn from the original Ice Alchemist, and headed north to find Isshin Kurosaki.

He was not expecting a petit girl with ink hair and violet eyes to glare at him.

'No.' She said, her voice echoed around the empty stoop. 'No. He won't teach you so leave.'

Hitsugaya felt a wave of irritation-who was this girl to tell him no?- and let his pocket watch swing from his fingers.

'_Oh._' The girl's voice changed, violet eyes darkening and a flash of white is seen as her lips curled into a small smile. 'In that case then…'

The door was slammed in his face, and he's dumbstruck at this turn of events. He hadn't a plan, because all the books say that alchemists are always looking for apprentices and he's just turned down by a _girl_ of all people.

It's three hours later, when a girl with fairer looks came up the walk with a basket full of fresh food from the market that he's let into Isshin Kurosaki's household.

'Karin does that.' Yuzu told apologetic, mincing onions for stew. 'She refuses to let alchemists in-only when they knock on our doors they're usually not State Alchemists.'

He puffed out his chest with pride, sitting on a barstool. Karin and Yuzu are Isshin Kurosaki's daughters, a year younger than him and neither of them are alchemists.

'But she's right. Papa won't teach you,' Yuzu continues, 'He's not in the country right now. He's off with Uncle Kisuke overseas.'

'And it's just you two alone?'

There's a pause, and it felt like there were words that had to be said but weren't and Yuzu nodded. 'Our mother died when we were young.'

Hitsugaya stayed for the night, and returned the capital the next morning.

* * *

When he was fifteen, a bit taller now that he hit his growth spurt, Hitsguaya once more travelled to the North to be taught by Isshin Kurosaki.

'He's not here.' Karin said, hip jutted out, childhood was already melting away from her features, and she was almost two inches shorter than him. 'He's never here so you just give up.'

'Will you let me look at his texts at least?' He hadn't made the three week journey just to return home again.

To his surprise, Karin sighed and rolled her eyes. 'Fine'

She led him through the house, where the wooden floor panels creaked and the smell of tea and something chemical covers everything. It's very tidy, and he's taken aback when Karin threw open the door to a disaster zone of books. Old tomes, dusty and large were stack higgledy-piggledy in no apparent order, scraps of paper with chicken scratch littered the floor.

'Have fun.' Karin said, closing the door behind him.

A month later, he emerged from the study, where he was fed tea and stew by Yuzu every day, checking to make sure he's still alive.

'I need your help.' He told Yuzu, showing her several pieces of paper. On one paper, there is Isshin Kurosaki's chicken scratch; on the other is his translation of the chicken scratch. 'I've managed to figure out what your father wrote, but it's in a code. And I can't decipher it.'

Yuzu looked it over, with a bent head and bit lip. 'I'm sorry; I can't make heads or tails of it.' She said shaking her head, 'But ask Karin she'd know.'

'How would she know?' Hitsugaya asked, his bitter disappointment make his voice crueler.

'Well she's an alchemist, and Papa taught her and Ichigo the codes years ago.'

'What?'

He found her in a field, playing some sport with village boys. If he wasn't so furious, he'd have noticed the looks he got stomping across the field, his pocket watch chain, dangling and glittering under the midafternoon sun.

'Karin Kurosaki.' He bellowed, halting the game and grabbing her wrist to drag her off the field. She'd didn't protest vocally, but her expression made it quite clear she wasn't coming willingly. 'Why didn't you tell me you were an alchemist?'

'I'm not.' Karin said defiantly, yanking her wrist free and crossing her arms in front of her chest. 'I can do alchemy, but that doesn't make me an alchemist. I can do math, but that doesn't make me a mathematician either.'

'There isn't a difference.' He said, stepping closer to her.

Her violet eyes flashed dangerously, and she pushed away firmly. 'There _is_ and if you can't tell the difference you're a piss poor alchemist.'

She walked away, stomping off and he left the next morning.

* * *

In three years since finding out Karin was an alchemist, his only correspondence with the Kurosakis were letters that Yuzu wrote him monthly, telling him about her and Karin's day to day life.

Yuzu told him that they were part Quincy, which explained Karin's violet eyes, and that their mother was greatly skilled in Alkahestry though an Alkahestry experiment gone wrong was what killed her. Yuzu was the only one out of the three Kurosaki children who was unable to perform alchemy or alkahestry. She had never elaborated about the third Kurosaki child, and Hitsugaya had to solve that mystery himself.

Ichigo Kurosaki had died when he was fifteen; the cause of death was unknown, but shortly after Isshin Kurosaki and Kisuke Urahara another famous alchemist, expelled by the State left Seireitei.

Karin and Yuzu had lived without their father, mother or elder brother since they were eleven. He wondered how it was possible.

When he was eighteen, he received a short letter from Yuzu telling him that Isshin was returning. Hitsugaya made haste to return to Karakura Town, and arrived a fortnight before Isshin Kurosaki was expected to return.

Years had passed and Yuzu was stunning at seventeen, her light brown hair long and her pale skin so customary of a Quincy marked her as exotic, but the sparkly diamond on her left finger claimed her to the redhead butcher in town. She had written about him before, and their nuptials were to take place in the coming year.

He wasn't surprised to find Karin had not greeted him, their relationship if one could call it that, was never particularly warm but had disintegrated into ash after he had confronted her at the field.

He was surprised then, when he made his way to Isshin's study, to find Karin, lithe and small, standing in a transmutation circle made of notes in the study.

'So you'll actually get taught by him.' She said, her voice dark, smoky and distinctly feminine echoed around the books. 'Not sure how much he can teach a State Alchemist.'

'Loads.' Hitsugaya said, crossing the doorway, tossing his jacket on the straight back chair which was filled with books. 'There are things that aren't in books that you can only learn by experience.'

'Like the Truth.' Karin said, her violet eyes fixing on him.

'Come again?'

'Equivalent Exchange. The first law. You can make nothing out of nothing.' She said, as if to a child, with practised eased as someone who's heard those words over and over again. 'An eye for an eye.'

'Well yes,' Hitsugaya said curiously, 'it follows physics. Everything is made up of matter logically you can't make something out of nothing.'

'So you pay a price willing for a weapon.'

'It's not a weapon, it's a tool!'

Karin laughed, and it sound like silver bells, clear and pretty but there was something condensing in the laugh. 'Alchemy is a weapon just like a gun.'

'That's the farthest thing from the truth!' He thundered.

'Oh? People get dependant on it, over confident. Like Icarus, thinking we're gods because we can rearrange molecules, making gold out of coal. And when we fly so close to the sun, we get burned.' Her slender fingers snapped, and the transmutation circle made of paper fell into flames, with Karin still in the centre.

'Everything comes with a price.' She said, her violet eyes never moving off of his. 'An eye for an eye, a life for a life.'

'A life?' He could only watch transfixed, as the papers curl and burn, but the flames never touching the wooden floor.

'My mother died because my brother couldn't control his alchemy. We can transmute anything right? And what is a human but oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen?' Karin stood in the flames, her lips curling into a sneer, bringing some form of beauty reflected in the yellow of the flames.

'Calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chlorine and sulfur.' She listed, 'It's so easy, so simple. It's almost funny. And at fifteen, you think you're immortal. And Dad never stopped him, some things you can't learn from books.' She threw his words back at him.

'What happened?'

'Icarus was the son.' Karin said, 'And his father watched helplessly as he fell from the sky.'

The flames stopped, and Karin looked beautiful in a transmutation circle of ashes. 'If you want my father to teach you, go ahead.'

She stepped out of the circle, walking past him out of the study.

'But he couldn't even teach his own son properly.'

* * *

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